“You should use this!” Four of the worst words you can hear before a show. The last two years, I have done a charity event. This event is very specific in scope and detail. It’s a football roast between two rivals, it has to be PG-13 or cleaner, and about five minutes in length. Each of the last two I had someone walk up to me, minutes before the show, for which I spent weeks writing material, hand me a piece of paper they printed and ask me to use their joke.
One joke was a “stock” joke or “uncle” joke as some may say. In other words, a generic joke where you could hear it at work in the break room or at a bar. The type of joke that one uncle you have knows and where you could swap the target and it still works. Example – how do you get a Michigan player off your porch? Pay him for the pizza. This is fine…but it’s unoriginal and works for literally any team you plug in there. The other was even worse, it was a 3 minute long parody song/poem. The kind you hear on a cheesy morning radio show. The guy that handed me this was almost stunned I said no, politely (polite for me is relative).
Here’s why this is not only rude for the fact it’s right before the show, it’s insulting to the comics. I have been doing stand-up comedy since 2007 on a regular basis. The first five years, I did some of the worst shows you can imagine. I did 45 minutes for $5 once, only to have the booker borrow $10 to pay his bar tab. I did a biker bar where I was told specifically I was not to make eye contact with the biker gang (joke’s on them, I don’t like eye contact with strangers). I have driven four hours on a work night to do a show, then four hours back and worked off of two hours’ sleep. I have spent, no exaggeration, thousands of hours writing material, testing it onstage, recording my set, video taping myself and editing after the fact. I’ve had bookers send my resume instead of my bio to shows, which meant one time my name, home address and cell number were posted in a bar/restaurant for a week. I walked in and saw it 45 minutes before I went onstage. In other words, I put in my time. You didn’t.
Also, does this happen to anyone else? I don’t walk into a restaurant, blow by the hostess and hand the cook a bag of spices. “You should cook chicken with this.” Does Taylor Swift get handed a new song someone who knows three chords wrote the night before? “Hey, I know you have a four hour show in two minutes, but you should play this song.” OH WOW OF COURSE!
Here’s my advice from now on. Next time someone hands me a joke, I going to write down four open mics I know about and hand it right back. Get busy, chief. You got about five plus years of work to do so you can tell your joke.